Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner in June 2024 for an eight-day test flight and came home on a SpaceX capsule 286 days later—not because they were chasing a record, but because NASA judged the propulsion problems on the spacecraft that carried them there too uncertain to risk bringing them back.
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Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore launched aboard Boeing's Starliner in June 2024 for what was meant to be an eight-day test flight, but returned to Earth 286 days later on a SpaceX capsule. NASA decided that unresolved thruster problems on Starliner made a crewed return riskier than waiting for Crew-9.
NASA did not conclude that Starliner was certain to fail. It concluded that unresolved thruster behaviour made a crewed return harder to justify than waiting for Crew-9. The post Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner in June 2024 for an eight-day test flight and came home on a SpaceX capsule 286 days later—not because they were chasing a record, but because NASA judged the propulsion problems on the spacecraft that carried them there too uncertain to risk bringing them back. appeared first on Space Daily .
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